Teen Addiction Severity Index (T-ASI): Hindi Translation and Validation for Use in India

Substance use among adolescents is increasing rapidly and becoming a global health concern worldwide. Because of the changing trends and rising magnitude in India, there is an urgent need to adapt and validate instruments to assess adolescents' substance use. The study translated the Teen-Addiction Severity Index (T-ASI) into Hindi and assessed the psychometric properties.

The instrument (T-ASI) was translated from English to Hindi using: (a) forward translation: translation from the source language into the target one, (b) comparison and synthesis of the two translated versions, (c) blind backward translation, (d) comparison of the two back-translated versions and development of prefinal version, (e) conceptual evaluation of items and pilot study, and (f) assessing the psychometric properties.

The content validity of Hindi T-ASI was quite high (0.97). A significant positive correlation r = 0.439* (0.014) between the T-ASI family functioning domain and the organization scale of the Family Environment Scale (FES) demonstrated good concurrent validity. Youth self-report substance use domain correlated well with youth self-report behavior problems scale r = 0.385 (0.033) and the psychiatric status domain correlated with all three internalizing 0.606 (<0.001), externalizing 0.363 (0.045), and behavior problem scale 0.546** (0.001). Construct validity showed significant differences between two groups (substance-using and nonsubstance-using groups) in all domains except school and peer status. Cross-cultural validity shows that the two versions are equivalent. The translated version showed satisfactory reliability (Cronbach's α = 0.727).

The translation and validation of Hindi-T-ASI show adequate psychometric properties and can be recommended for use in treatment settings across the country.